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The Other Illiberal Catholicism

Several months ago University of Notre Dame Professor Patrick Deneen made a bit of a splash with his American Conservative piece, “A Catholic Showdown Worth Watching.” The article was occasioned, in part, by neo-Catholic apologist John Zmirak’s “Illiberal Catholicism,” a childish polemic which inadvertently gave rise to a number of Catholics, including yours truly, adopting the title of Zmirak’s piece as their new moniker. Deneen doesn’t go quite that far terminologically with respect to himself and a host of other Catholic thinkers he identifies as anti-liberal: Alasdair MacIntyre, David Schindler, William Cavanaugh, John Medaille, C.C. Pecknold, and Andrew Haines, along with many of the contributors to Ethika Politika. Deneen prefers the label “radical Catholic,” though at the end of the day they oppose the ideology Zmirak and the old neo-Catholic guard—the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Michael Novak, and George Weigel—strenuously defended: the unnatural union of Catholicism and liberalism, specifically American-style liberal democracy. While neo-Catholicism spent a great deal of the 1990s and 00s allied with neoconservatism and the Republican Party, a sizable wave of Americanist Catholics are now embracing the tenets of high-octane economic liberalism and social freedom, better known as libertarianism. Some examples include Tom Woods and Jeffrey Tucker along with many of the movers-and-shakers at the Acton Institute.

Deneen’s portrait of illiberal Catholicism is helpful, but incomplete. Though hardly uniform in thought and orientation, the illiberal (or “radical”) Catholics Deneen mentions tend to take their bearings from the post-Second Vatican Council theology that developed in the pages of Communio and, to a more limited extent, the re-castings of St. Thomas Aquinas that occurred in various pockets of the Catholic intellectual world over the course of the 20th Century. For several reasons, these Catholic thinkers share some affinities with non-Catholics who are skeptical of liberalism, such as the Oxbridge “Radical Orthodoxy” school, though the former maintain a tighter hold on the Catholic Church’s magisterium. But beyond those mentioned by Deneen in The American Conservative is a brigade of illiberal Catholics with roots that run far deeper than intellectual trends which began to form during the latter half of the last century. These illiberal Catholics take their first bearings from the great socio-ecclesial encyclicals of the 19th and early 20th Centuries: Gregory XVI’s Mirari Vos; Blessed Pius IX’s Quanta Cura and Syllabus Errorum; Leo XIII’s Immortale Dei and Rerum Novarum; St. Pius X’s Quanta Cura and E Supremi Apostolatus; and Pius XI’s Quas Primas and Quadragesimo Anno. Rather than looking toward (post)modern academic currents for additional intellectual ammunition, these illiberal Catholics seek grounding in the timeless wisdom of the Angelic Doctor and the tradition which emerged from his teachings. These illiberal Catholics oppose not only the political and economic liberalism which has infected human society, but also the religious liberalism that has rotted the Catholic Church from the inside out for the past 50 years. It is, one might contend, a more militant form of anti-liberalism than what some are used to today, but surely more tempered than the 19th Century Catholic counterrevolutionary tradition that these illiberal Catholics, in various ways, seek to emulate in the contemporary world.

And who are these illiberal Catholics? In the United States, they are folks like John Rao, Brian McCall, and Christopher Ferrara, along with various clerical and lay contributors to publications such as The Remnant, The Angelus, and, occasionally, the now unfortunately dormant Distributist Review. In addition to the aforementioned magisterial and philosophical roots of this brand of illiberal Catholicism, many who align with it draw sustenance from not only towering 20th Century Anglophone Catholic writers such as G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, and Christopher Dawson, but also anti-liberal continentals such as Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortes, Louis Veuillot, Jean Ousset, Dom Gerard Calvet, and, perhaps most controversially, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. For these illiberal Catholics, the question of the day concerns not the rights of man, but rather the rights of God. Christ the King, not a democratic majority captured by various liberal ideologies, must reign over society.

With that stated, it would be a mistake to assume that there is a neat divide between the illiberal Catholicism Deneen discusses and the other “brand” I mention here. For example, Pater Edmund Waldstein, who runs the uniformly excellent Sancrucensis web-log, routinely demonstrates his comfort with multiple strands of anti-liberal thinking, both classic and modern. Pater Edmund’s detailed response to Zmirak, “Integralism,” is a hallmark example of building bridges among different schools of Catholic thought in the service of truth. His more recent piece, “The Politics of Nostalgia,” is also well worth reading.

Going forward, the most promising development that I can contemplate, short of slaying the Americanist beast once and for all, is for the various streams of illiberal Catholic thinking to begin running closer and closer together until they deposit into a vast reservoir of knowledge that is just as concerned with the principles of right Catholic order as it is with the means of achieving it. Ever since the collapse of the Catholic counterrevolutionary tradition in the last century there has been, arguably, an overemphasis on contemplation at the unnecessary expense of action. “Dialogue”—endless chatter—has been the order of these many days. Meanwhile, those who compromised the Catholic Faith in the name of finding a pleasing home in this world, with its endless entertainments and cheap comforts, succeeded in making their vision of Catholicism the only “normative” one available. Illiberal Catholicism, in its various guises, is now saying otherwise. There will be many disagreements among illiberal Catholics to come, and some of them may get quite heated, but so long as we remain faithful to our Holy Mother the Church and actively work in cooperation with Almighty God for the restoration of sanity in a world gone mad with relativism, indifferentism, and consumerism, we may yet see the sky grow lighter in our lifetime.

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13 comments

I hope illiberal Catholicism continues to grow and gain influence but realistically the numbers are overwhelmingly against us. There are many traditional-Latin Mass goers who are not only mild-libertarians but hardcore Rothbardians. I still difficulty wrapping my mind around such cognitive dissonance.

Perhaps this would be a topic for another post, but I have noticed with the exception of Pater Edmund and the SSPX, that virtually all illiberal Catholics nowadays are laymen. It seems the clergy is especially squeamish on these issue even more so than on others like contraception or even usury. It seems many American clerics have so internalized the thought of John Courtney Murray, Cardinal Gibbons and Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Are they really just concerned about charges of “theocracy!”?

Reading quotes for Cardinal Ratzinger wherein he praises the First Amendment are disheartening to say the least, and really undermine any kind of illiberal critique. What will it take move beyond this political liberalism?

I think what it will take is, sadly, what we are seeing now: the reality that liberalism has no room for us. We — Catholicism — got into this deal thinking that if we played by the rules, participated according to the norms of liberalism, and didn’t let our “hocus-pocus religion” get in the way of being dutiful consumers, civil servants, etc., we would have a place to call home and no problems to worry about. False. Unfortunately, after spending over a century intoxicated on the liquor of liberalism here in America, it’s going to take some time for us to recover from the hangover.

None of them have any direct links to fascism, unless one subscribes to the Isaiah Berlin School of Historical Revisionism. Besides, don’t you know? Fascism started with Plato…or was it Machiavelli…etc.

Because what I — and others — are talking about here is not some neo-pagan conflation of religion and politics with a totalizing state but rather the restoration of Christendom with the state and the Church holding their properly ordained places in the world. There is no racialist ideology nor nationalistic myths animating the concerns of any of the men listed, nor are they at the heart of my own thinking.

It might be helpful, if you are genuinely interested in this topic, to read the “Integralism” post I link to above. I think that will provide a much clearer picture of what the pressing issues are and what the “goal” — so to speak — is. I would also suggest Dom Gerard’s sermon, which you can find on this blog under the title “Illiberal Catholic Manifesto.” If you feel that either of these texts are fascistic in some way, please let me know. I don’t see it. I don’t see how anyone could see it, but perhaps you are working with a far broader definition of fascism than I — one which basically sees few, if any, alternatives to contemporary liberalism. Or, if I am misunderstanding you, let me know. I am all eyes.

Petro’s question is an interesting one, and I don’t think it can be dismissed so curtly. According to the German historian Ernst Notle, fascism, at its core, was the “counterrevolutionary imitation of the Left.” In other words, it was a revolutionary movement with reactionary characteristics set in opposition to various Left-liberal positions. If we are to move beyond pixelated theorizing about the irreconcilability of Catholicism with liberalism, if we are to work toward the actualization of a just political order, it seems to me that some sort revolutionary-reactionary movement is necessary. Traditional conservatism is no longer an option, because there is very little left of the traditional political and social order to conserve. Given the state of the modern West, something like fascism may be the only way forward. There’s a reason trad Catholics view Franco’s Spain and Salazar’s Portugal the way they do.

I think Notle is over-simplifying things. Fascism was more than just a reaction to the Left, though that was obviously part of its modus operandi and attraction. But like so many political movements, fascism was not monolithic. There are some important distinctions to be drawn from the manifest neo-paganism of National Socialism and the Orthodox-embedded fascism that reigned in Romania.

Calling for a return to a just order built on Catholic principles is not a call to taking up arms and jack-booting our way to victory. There is an active, evangelistic element to this which cannot be ignored. What is immediately out-of-bounds are nationalistic myths, scape-goating, and other deformations which have nothing to do with the social magisterium of the Catholic Church and the teachings. Not everything counter-revolutionary needs to be violent. Making our voices heard would be a good place to start. Right now we seem to be contenting ourselves with endless discussion.

Calling for a return to a just order built on Catholic principles is not a call to taking up arms and jack-booting our way to victory. There is an active, evangelistic element to this which cannot be ignored.

Yes, of course. I was referring not so much as to how something like fascism is implemented—although I can see how that was implied—but as to what an (illiberal) Catholic state would look like given modernity.

What is immediately out-of-bounds are nationalistic myths, scape-goating, and other deformations which have nothing to do with the social magisterium of the Catholic Church and the teachings.

Insofar as Catholic Social Teaching includes the principle of the common good, it seems to me that questions pertaining to whether or not multiculturalism and diversity serve the common good are not out-of-bounds. James Kalb, one of the foremost contemporary defenders of illiberal Catholicism, has addressed much of this in his latest book Against Inclusiveness: How the Diversity Regime is Flattening America and the West and What to Do About It.

it seems to me that questions pertaining to whether or not multiculturalism and diversity serve the common good are not out-of-bounds

I bring this up because questioning whether or not multiculturalism and diversity serve the common good is often dismissed as fascist (in derogatory fashion, as if that settled the matter), as propagating nationalistic myths and engaging in scapegoating.

At this point I am not sure it’s a good use of resources to imagine a Catholic state in a (post)modern secular world. I am all for baby steps and those baby steps need to include basic, localized organization and action. And here I am thinking about Catholic worker/professional associations; the collective use of established public forums to defend and advance principles of good order, even on a very small scale (school boards, town hall meetings, municipal elections, etc.); and, if needed, demonstrations. Visibility is key. Of course we’re in the minority right now and lack a handle on the usual levers of power, but that does not justify quietism.

Let me give you an example of something I am thinking about on a very low level. In Grand Rapids we have a Catholic-owned pharmacy called Kay Pharmacy. They have one location in a rather small city (population just under 200k). Because it is Catholic owned, it does not sell contraceptives. Period. So why aren’t we — the Catholic community writ large — committed to doing our business there, if not exclusively then at least almost exclusively? Is this not the model of a business we want to see grow? Do we not want pharmacies that do not deal in immoral products over, say, CVS and Walgreens? But I suspect Kay struggles to keep going like any locally owned establishment even though it — and other pharmacies built on Catholic principles — should be thriving.